Welcome to MilkyWay@home

Posts by (retired account)

21) Message boards : Cafe MilkyWay : Milestones III (Message 41662)
Posted 22 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
Without a suitable GPU in the moment I will cross the 400,000 credit mark at any time now. That's one big leap for me, but it won't bother mankind. ;-)

In BOINC combined I've already passed 3,000,000, which made me also a member of the upper ten thousand on this planet according to BOINCstats. Roughly half of it should be GPU credits.



Congrats for all your personal achievements!
22) Message boards : Number crunching : Not D/L WU's (Message 41640)
Posted 21 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
Hi Mike,

my guess is that at the time when you polled the server, it had only nbody workunits available and none for the 'normal' milkyway app. The server status page says that not much workunits are available in total currently.

Even if you include a section in your app_info.xml for nbody, you could only get workunits for the CPU, since no GPU app is available for nbody up to now. That makes the messages from the server a little bit misleading because you were requesting GPU tasks and it answered you can't get nbody because you have no app for it. ;-)

I see that you already have accounts for Collatz and DNETC, maybe you should crunch some of those in the meantime and simply keep polling Milkyway for GPU tasks?

Regards
23) Message boards : Number crunching : computer 204959 (Message 41624)
Posted 20 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
Hi Michael, don't worry and no need to feel sorry. The server will just wait until the deadline on the 27th and send the task to another participant. Such things happen a thousand times every day on the BOINC networks and therefore BOINC servers are designed to cope with it.

Btw, you could have forced the server to resend the task faster by aborting every single task before detaching from the project. But that's not necessary.

I guess that old computer is a laptop. If you still use it for other things you might want to look into some projects which don't require much processing power or don't use the full cpu load at all. Projects like HAL@Home, WUProp@Home or the Quake Catcher Network run happily in the background, the last requires additional hardware however. Projects like Spinhenge, malariacontrol.net or Simap usually have short running tasks which can be calculated from time to time if the laptop is in use.

Just click on my name and you find quite a lot of projects to choose from... ;-) (not all are still online, however, but you'll see).
24) Message boards : News : nbody simulation assimilator up and running (Message 41619)
Posted 20 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
At least the validation is running again and all that are not failing due to that 'Maximum elapsed time exceeded' error seem to get credit.
25) Message boards : News : nbody simulation assimilator up and running (Message 41611)
Posted 20 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
Is there any problem with the validation currently? It appears all results are going into pending, even those with quorum=1 and not counting those with errors of course, and the status remains 'Completed, waiting for validation'.

Regards
26) Message boards : News : windows intelx86 and x86_64 binaries added for the nbody simulations (Message 41574)
Posted 19 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
For comparison I started a test on an old system of mine. This is a dual socket Athlon XP running Windows 2000 SP4 (32bit of course). This CPU supports SSE but nothing higher. It appears the nbody simulation does not run at all on such a system.

There are two types of errors:

1. The application crashes almost in an instant and progress bar jumps to 100%. See here for example: de_nbody_test_10_31110_1282174646_0


2. The application runs for approx. 20 minutes, elapsed time is increasing, remaining time is decreasing, progress bar is not running at all, CPU load is full. See here for example: de_nbody_test_10_31094_1282174646_0

Don't get me wrong here. It is not a big deal, if you intend not to support such old hardware and/or operating system.

Regards
27) Message boards : News : windows intelx86 and x86_64 binaries added for the nbody simulations (Message 41571)
Posted 18 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
Still some errors from time to time:

de_nbody_test_10_14620_1282140181
de_nbody_test_10_14642_1282140181
de_nbody_test_10_14717_1282140181
de_nbody_test_10_28566_1282168828
de_nbody_test_10_28643_1282168828

I noticed that the runtimes of the error results are quite similar on my box, all around 932 seconds. And I got none pending or valid which ran longer. Some kind of timeout?
28) Message boards : News : windows intelx86 and x86_64 binaries added for the nbody simulations (Message 41567)
Posted 18 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:


Hello Alexander, i tried a few different app_info.xml's myself and i've come up with this one:



(...)

I tried it right now and all my gpu-wu's failed immediate. Since the last code-update (HD58xx-series) there is no longer a app_info.xml included. So I copied the last distributed one to the work-directory, changed the names, copied your code into it and restarted boinc. Crashed in the moment of starting it.


Alexander,

if you want to crunch on your ATI and on the CPU you have to build an app_info.xml which includes both sections. Take a look an the xml which was posted by Tim Norton here. It was, however, for the 'old' opt. CPU app and for a NVIDIA GPU, so yours would look different. You have to combine Arjans CPU part and another part for the ATI. Can't help you on the last, cause I have only a single-precision ATI GPU, but I'm sure others can.

P.S.: Arjan, thanks so far, I'm coming back after I've tested it. Have to empty my cache first a bit, have tons of SIMAP and some QuantumFire burning. :-)

EDIT:

So I copied the last distributed one to the work-directory, changed the names, copied your code into it and restarted boinc.


Uhmm.. ok, I should read better, sorry, my bad. Maybe you should try first to get only the GPU part working, might be easier to find an error that way.

EDIT:

Hello Arjan,

your app_info.xml works like a charm! Great, thanks a lot.
29) Message boards : News : windows intelx86 and x86_64 binaries added for the nbody simulations (Message 41566)
Posted 18 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:

There isn't a 64 bit binary yet. Windows is a pain, and I need to do some work to get an actual 64 bit version. It will be 64 bit eventually; it's quite a bit faster for this.

Hm, then why do we have two apps for Windos now?
It's a bit misleading if one is called x86_64 when it's in fact a 32-bit app... ;-)


Well, that's not too unusual. Quite a number of projects send 32bit apps to the x86_64 system, for example Rosetta, LHC, Docking, RCN, Spinhenge...

I wouldn't bother if I get a 32bit app as something_x86.exe or something_x86_64.exe. ;-)

However, the possibility to have a real 64bit app later with some performance gain, is promising. :-)
30) Message boards : News : windows intelx86 and x86_64 binaries added for the nbody simulations (Message 41553)
Posted 18 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
thx a lot

I'd like to have only CPU and only the new nbody sim not the former app.

I see that the older CPU app - 0.21 SSE3 in your case, stock 0.19 in mine - does not need any other file references than to the executable itself.

My first try was as follows, but it failed to do the job:

<app_info>
 <app>
 <name>milkyway</name>
 </app>
 <file_info>
  <name>milkyway_nbody_0.03_windows_x86_64.exe</name>
  <executable/>
 </file_info>
 <app_version>
  <app_name>milkyway</app_name>
  <version_num>3</version_num>
  <file_ref>
   <file_name>milkyway_nbody_0.03_windows_x86_64.exe</file_name>
   <main_program/>
  </file_ref>
 </app_version>
</app_info>


I'm not sure about the content of the <name> and <app_name> tags and that of the <version_num> tags.

And the first download included some more files

    orphan_test_4096_bodies.js
    histogram_4096_bodies
    p-12-3s-free.txt
    p-14-3s-free.txt



Is it necessary to include a reference to some of those as well?

31) Message boards : News : windows intelx86 and x86_64 binaries added for the nbody simulations (Message 41550)
Posted 18 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
Two workunits with errors here and also on the other hosts, that got them so far:

de_nbody_test_10_9674_1282101611
de_nbody_test_10_10314_1282103078

Btw, if anyone has a working app_info.xml which excludes the milkyway 0.19 workunits from being downloaded, it would be appreciated, if you would share it here. ;-)

32) Message boards : News : windows intelx86 and x86_64 binaries added for the nbody simulations (Message 41546)
Posted 18 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
Thanks for the reply, Travis. And understood. :-)
33) Message boards : News : windows intelx86 and x86_64 binaries added for the nbody simulations (Message 41544)
Posted 18 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
Ok, I got twelve MilkyWay@Home N-Body Simulation v0.03 workunits for the x86_64 platform. The application file size is approx. 4.5 MB and it is a 32bit executable. Runtime was very short, between 0.5 and 2.5 minutes on a 3,2 GHz Phenom II X4. No screensaver / graphics included apparently.

Strange thing: No upload seen, but finished without error acc. to BOINC manager. Maybe very small result files?

All twelve are now listed as pending with status 'Completed, validation inconclusive'.

EDIT: Two results are now validated! Fine.

Computer ID=152604
List of Tasks

That's it for now. Comments?
34) Message boards : News : first nbody simulation workunits (Message 41497)
Posted 16 Aug 2010 by (retired account)
Post:
From the message boards I understand that this application might also be ported to the GPUs later, but for the time being, wouldn't it be a good idea to add checkboxes to the account / preferences where one could deselect the 'old' application when selecting the nbody app?

Otherwise, if 'use CPU' is checked, I guess, one would also get the cpu applicaton for the other Milkyway@home application. A mere waste of cpu cycles, given the outstanding performance of the ATI cards...

Regards
35) Message boards : Number crunching : Vote for the MilkyWay favicon! (Message 8217)
Posted 7 Jan 2009 by (retired account)
Post:
My vote: #9

Alex
36) Message boards : Number crunching : No further Support for Milkyway at this time! (Message 6164)
Posted 14 Nov 2008 by (retired account)
Post:
Hi fellow crunchers,

if you think that the credits for Milkyway w/ the optimized app are "maybe just a bit too high" then please take a look at this pc. A ten year old K6-III 400 MHz doing ~ 3.500 credits in three days? (I shut it down again for Milkyway on last sunday.) My eight year old dual PIII did 'only' ~ 4500 credits since end of last week because it also did some climateprediction calculations in the same time. If you think this is normal and justified, well, I might better start argueing with a tree. :-)

This is a question of fairness. Fairness between the people who use the optimized app and those who don't. Fairness between the people who use brand new hardware and those who use some obsolete pile of junk (as I did). And last but not least fairness between the projects, that use BOINC as a common platform for distributed computing. Not talking 'bout Seti and the other big ones, which are already fat and fed up with users, but there are many small and new projects out there which could use some more cpu cycles on our machines and they should have chance to attract also some of the users that care about credits. You might say, 'I give a **** about fairness', but then we might say, you better stay alone.

@ the projects admins: Please integrate the optimized app as soon as possible into the official software and please adjust the credit level to something more reasonable. I'm sure we will all be happy to support the project then (again). Too much to ask for?

.. ok, I think I made my point, ready to take your punch now. :-)

Regards

Alex

P.S.: public computing should also include public discussion, no?

edit: just read Travis' update on the main page. great, that you guys don't loose your humour...


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